headlines of three ads from 1972 demonstrate this clearly: “The Air Force skill. You can take it
with you”; “The job we guarantee you today, can guarantee your future tomorrow”; and, “I
learned my job in the US Air Force.” Throughout the 1970s, the word that is used most
frequently in Air Force advertising copy seems to be “skill.” During this period, the Air Force
used the slogan, “Find Yourself in the US Air Force,” but the ads say nothing about self-
discovery or personal emotional growth; they’re talking about figuring out how to turn an
interest into a good, solid skill. Similarly, the slogan the Air Force began using in 1976, “A
Great Way of Life,” seems to refer to a good job, benefits, and the chance at an education, not to
a life of adventure, challenge, or service. By this time, the focus of the ads had expanded
slightly, beyond just job training to a broader emphasis on benefits, like medical coverage,
education opportunities, and vacation time.
Air Force ads of the 1970s aren’t militaristic in tone or in their imagery—in the early
1970s they tended to picture jet engines, rather than jets—but while they don’t offer a
traditionally martial masculinity, they do proffer a working-class masculinity. The Air Force
presents itself as a place for a man to learn a trade and advance himself; for instance, they claim
“Air Force training gives a man a skill he can always carry with him.” This kind of blue-collar
manhood is further exemplified in the following ad copy, with its references to “craftsman’s
hands” and “a master at his skill”:
Start with an inquiring mind. Add a passion for making things work. Then combine
these qualities with a love of machines and a craftsman’s hands, and you’ve got a
natural born mechanic. When the Air Force gets hold of a guy like they, they’ll spend
thousands of dollars to train him to be a master at his skill.
Several ads from the 1970s specifically look for potential recruits with “inborn” or “natural”
mechanical abilities, and some sought to challenge the reader with a spatial reasoning quiz and to
validate his technical skills and interests.
Some of the ads from this period do make rhetorical reference to women as well as men,
such as a 1972 ad on “The Air Force skill” which notes that each year “[t]housands of young
men and women enlist,” or another ad from the same year which states “[o]ne of the best reasons
to join the Air Force is to take advantage of the training they offer young men and women.”
Despite the references to women, the ads all seem to target men and only men are pictured.
The image of a woman appears in my sample for the first time in 1976. The ad contains a
large picture of a jet, as well as three smaller pictures of Air Force personnel: two white men
crouched under a jet, an African-American man working on piece of equipment, and a white
28
Convention